You are here:

James Ranney

Ranney, James. T

Job Title

James T. Ranney is Adjunct Professor of Law at Widener’s Delaware campus. Professor Ranney joined Widener in 2011, coming out of semi-retirement to team-teach International Law. While in private practice, Professor Ranney specialized in criminal law (including post-conviction death penalty litigation), class actions (plaintiffs’ steering committee on In Re Copley Pharmaceutical, Inc., “Albuterol” Products Liability Litigation, 161 F.R.D. 456 (D. Wyo. 1995), aff’d sub nom, Burns v. Copley Pharmaceutical, Inc., 132 F3d 42 (10th Cir. 1997) [also on 8-person trial team] and In re Diet Drugs (Phentermine, Fenfluramine, Dexfenfluramine) Products Liability Litigation, 282 F.3d 220 (3rd Cir. 2002), medical malpractice, and employment law, all as a solo practitioner in, first, Missoula, Montana, and later, Philadelphia. Prior to that, he was University Legal Counsel for the University of Montana and Research Professor of law at the University of Montana School of Law, teaching courses in Criminal Procedure, Legal Writing, Legal History, and Contemporary Legal Problems (“Law and World Peace”).

Prior to law teaching, Professor Ranney was an Assistant District Attorney, Deputy Chief of the Appeals Division, in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. Prior to that, he clerked for the Hon. Thomas E. Fairchild on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Professor Ranney has a long-time interest in the peace issue, in particular, abolition of nuclear weapons and the establishment of international dispute resolution mechanisms. He is finishing a book an article and a book on this issue.

Professor Ranney was a co-founder of the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center (in Missoula, Montana), a Legal Consultant to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Chair of the Philadelphia Chapter of Citizens for Global Solutions, and is currently a Board Member of the Project for Nuclear Awareness.

Professor Ranney is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and the Harvard Law School.

ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR

Get Full Text in PDF
Abstract
The author sets about re-thinking the old concept of “World Peace Through Law” (WPTL), meaning replacing the use of international force with the global rule of law. He traces the history of the WPTL concept back to the British legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham, whose 1789 ‘Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace’ proposed “a plan of general and permanent pacification for all Europe,” with troop reductions(especially in naval forces) and “a Common Court of...